Merchant

Description At Bath & Body Works, we believe everybody deserves to feel good. When you join us, you're part of more than an iconic fragrance and personal care brand — you become part of Gingham Nation, where people are at the center of everything we do. We believe great associate experiences create great consumer experiences. When our associates feel supported, inspired and empowered, consumers feel it. Whether you're starting your career or building your next chapter, we invest in your growth so you can learn, lead and help create feel good moments every day. The Diffuser Merchant helps translate the brand vision into strategies that deliver sales and profit growth by leading the concept creation and commercialization of new product launches, analyzing consumer insights to support key brand initiatives, and maintaining a solid understanding of the external marketplace. They also intimately understand the competition, the target customer, and the Brand-specific fashion trends with the critical ability to translate that knowledge into an actionable annual and seasonal business plan to achieve sales expectations for one or more merchandise categories. Responsibilities • Drive a complex, diffuser fragrance category that delivers year-over-year growth with elevated innovation work • Responsible for sustaining existing while commercializing new diffuser fragrances, specific to brand initiatives and category objectives • Owns communication and collaboration with all cross functional partners to deliver products that support the total Shop merchandising and collection strategies, while being in sync with x-category diffuser and home partners • Partners in architecting the assortment to include: sub-brand positioning and identifying key competitors; identify new products, developing communication and training for both internal and external consumers • Partner with Commercialization Services to keep track of timelines, anticipate / communicate issues and drive due dates on time • Develops and presents line plan that correlates to financial objectives • Runs in-season business by supervising and analyzing sales to see opportunities to increase sales, improve margins, enhance inventories and decrease markdowns • Works together with Merchandise Planning and Allocation to select key items and develop a seasonal plan that references historical performance and current business data • Provides Marketing, Visual Merchandising and Stores with product knowledge and serves as an informational resource • Understands the competition by conducting patterning activities that require regular in-store scans of benchmark competitors to find opportunities and challenges for in-season business and future season line planning • Visits stores regularly to proactively solicit feedback from customers and sales associates • Hires, coaches, evaluates and develops Associate and/or Assistant Merchants and leads departmental efforts to align with overall merchandising brand strategy for their team.

Qualifications • 5-7 years of related work experience in brand development, merchandise buying and/or retail management • Experience with patterning competitors and the marketplace, sees the opportunities, and an ability to turn ideas into recommendations quickly • Balance of creativity and conceptual thinking with analytical and project management skills • Flexibility and agility in leading complex tasks in a fast and agile retail environment • Solid understanding of vertically integrated retail, business sense and retail math skills • Successful track record for business growth and bottom-line results • Shown ability of detailed commercialization execution and anticipation of challenges, problem solving and follow through • Acute sense of the brand, customer intimacy and fashion sense with skills to envision and interpret fragrance trends • Strong ability to collaborate with and influence cross-functional